Rational choice theory is the most overrated crap ever inflicted on humanity by fools.

For any choice there exists a value function maximized by that choice. All that pundits like the undercover economist do is cherry-pick social problems where there exist convenient post-hoc rationalizations that validate social prejudices.

Note how fragile the analysis is -- how little it actually answers, even in its own terms.

For example -- why is the analysis limited to black people? Wouldn't an economist supposed that a shortage of marriagable black men would lead black women to marry outside their ethnic group? Wouldn't black men be more likely to marry within their ethnic group, where they could get a better deal?

In truth the reverse is true. Black men are more than twice as likely to marry outside there ethnic group as black women. Just to be clear -- this is the opposite of what one would expect under the rational choice argument made in the article.

Of course the economist could reply that some factor particular to women made women unwilling to marry outside there ethnic group. Black women would be unwilling to marry outside their ethnic group simply because they are women.

Except that asian women are much more likely to marry outside their ethnic group than asian men. White women are about as likely as white men to marry outside their ethnic group.

Only by postulating some factor particular to black women can the economist get his rational choice theory to match the data. At that point though, he's assumed his conclusion.

Perhaps he ought just give up and stop bothering people who don't think a linear regression is an experiment.

(data from <link>

via Dr. Google)

Well put - see my previous post. The article is a poor excuse for shoddy reasoning.

That's right. Human decisions are not always rational. Why do so few black women go after white men? I don't know. You could say it is "cultural" but that doesn't really explain anything. Maybe it has to do with the extremely negative reaction they would get from their parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles. Expected reactions from friends and family enter greatly into human decisions. Certain actions are rewarded, others punished, and those effects can override any purely economic or sexual motive.

As an over-28, former newspaper reporter and current graduate student, with friends, aquaintances and associates who range in age from 21 to 50 years - most of them from different ethnic/racial/socio-economic groups - the article was more on point than off.

Generally speaking, my single, black women friends with undergraduate, medical or law degrees and good jobs, complain about people setting them up on dates with black men who never went to college; have jobs as security guards, postmen, hairdressers or some other characteristic that does not match or complement their level of education, personality or family background.

My white women friends with the same educational/background characteristics are typically introduced to single men WITH college and/or professional degrees, and jobs in which the men are the manager of 'this,' the director of 'that,' or the CEO of the ABCD Company.

The black single women said they're open to dating outside their race; many of the white men, however, would never date or marry a black woman because of family issues. The white women would be open to dating black men, but many said they are unsure if they would marry one (this response differed along age/social class levels).

The black married women who have husbands who lost their jobs and were out of work for long periods of time, generally stuck with the men; my white married female friends tended to get rid of husbands whose earning power was lost or severely diminished over a period of time.

As to the Madonnas - my single (and attractive) women pals (white, black, Hispanic and Asian) who don't sleep around or don't believe in premarital sex, rarely or NEVER get asked out on dates. The liberally spirited girls DO get asked out on dates. However, the majority of women in both groups really question if they'll ever get married. Their responses seem to mirror what the author said: the men have no incentive to marry because of all the freebies they can have without the ring. The availability of free love and easy access tends to make a guy evolve (or devolve) into a lazy tom cat.

My brother, who has a JD and an MBA and a house in the desireable part of town, said the women are being "too picky" or "shallow," which is why they're alone. Interesting given that he tends to date women who are usually 9s or 9.5s on the 10 scale of attractiveness.

The point here is that there is a level of rationality in the seemingly irrational selection process: women generally like to nest; men generally like to hunt. When the balance of nature, so to speak, gets out of whack, and the women not only offer the benefits of "nesting" while developing hunting skills, the male response becomes a no-brainer.

My point is that your simply asserting a bunch of anectdotes and opinions with flimsy connections.

Not that I’m a social research scientist, but what you deem as “anecdotes and opinions with flimsy connections,” were based on simple informal observations of a random cross-section group of people. Simple informal observations about a particular set(s) or series of random events, is the initial process social scientists (or any other research-based scientist) utilize when they wish to make hypotheses about a particular phenomenon. (Just like the collection of observations made by emergency room physicians in San Francisco during the 1980s when they noticed an increase in a particular strand of pneumonia plaguing males in the gay community [later named HIV/AIDS]). Once a hypothesis is made, the research scientists goes about testing and validating (or invalidating) the claim of the hypothesis to prove/disprove the theory. If the scientist discovers his/her hypothesis is valid, the scientists can then explain or establish the ‘why’ a particular trend(s), pattern(s) or other behavior(s) of significance, is occurring. The author, Tim Harford, uses his research to explain why local marriage markets are in flux. Again, the point of my initial response, in what you state are “flimsy connections,” was to contribute to the dialogue that the author’s book has credence based on my informal sample of random group observations. My informal group observations, I noticed, seem to support the author’s first book excerpt, The Economics of Marriage, that there is “an imbalance in….local marriage markets” that impede men from marrying women.

Thanks for the lesson in scientific method. Now show me how the article demonstrates it.

Oh, because your friend with a JD likes a 9.5 while complaining about meat market.

It all makes sense, how could I have not seen it.